Dorsett Vandeventer "Tubby" Graves (November 27, 1886 – January 16, 1960) was a college head coach in
baseball,
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
, and
basketball, and a player of football and baseball.
A head coach in three sports, Graves was primarily a baseball coach, and led three college programs for a total of 32 seasons. He began at the
University of Alabama for four seasons (1912–1915), spent another four at
Texas A&M University (1916–1919), and finished with 24 seasons the
University of Washington (1923–1946).
In the sport of football, he was a college head coach for seven seasons: at Alabama (1911–1914), Texas A&M (1918), and the Agricultural College of the State of Montana—now
Montana State University
Montana State University (MSU) is a Public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Bozeman, Montana. It is the state's largest university. MSU offers baccalaureate degrees in 60 fields, master's degrees in 6 ...
(1920–1921), compiling a career record of 32–18–4. In basketball, he served as a head coach for six years: at Alabama (1912–1915), Texas A&M (1915–1916), and Montana Agricultural (1920–1922). At Washington, he was a longtime assistant coach in football and basketball, and later an assistant athletic director.
In the summer of 1912, Graves was the manager of the
La Junta Railroaders
The La Junta Railroaders were a minor league baseball team based in La Junta, Colorado. The Railroaders played in the 1912 season as members of the Class D level Rocky Mountain League. La Junta hosted home games at City Park.
History
In 1912, mi ...
, a
minor league baseball team in
La Junta, Colorado
La Junta is a home rule municipality in , the county seat of, and the most populous municipality of Otero County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 7,322 at the 2020 United States Census. La Junta is located on the Arkansas Ri ...
of the short-lived
Rocky Mountain League
The Rocky Mountain League was a minor league baseball league that operated in 1912. The Class D level league featured teams based in Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming. The short–lived Rocky Mountain League folded during the 1912 season.
Hist ...
.
Early years
Born in
Missouri, Graves was one of ten children of a doctor, and his two given names were surnames of two physicians.
[ He played ]college football
College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States.
Unlike most ...
at Missouri from 1906 to 1908, and after his eligibility was used up in the Midwest, he moved to the Northwest
The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sep ...
and played at Idaho on the Palouse for a season in 1909. After college, Graves played baseball in the minor leagues.[
]
Coaching career
Baseball
Graves was the head coach at Alabama, Texas A&M, and Washington, where he led the Huskies in Seattle for 24 seasons (1923–1946). Graves had a long-standing amicable rivalry with Buck Bailey of Washington State, whom he coached in baseball and football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
at Texas A&M.
Football
After several years of playing baseball in the minors, he coached football at Alabama, Texas A&M, and what is now Montana State.[ From 1911 to 1914, he led the Alabama program to a 21–12–3 record. In his only season at Texas A&M in 1918, he compiled a 6–1 record. He then served as an assistant coach at Texas A&M in 1919 under head coach ]Dana X. Bible
Dana Xenophon Bible (October 8, 1891 – January 19, 1980) was an American football player, coach of football, basketball, and baseball, and college athletics administrator. He served as the head football coach at Mississippi College (1913–1 ...
. At Montana Agricultural in Bozeman
Bozeman is a city and the county seat of Gallatin County, Montana, United States. Located in southwest Montana, the 2020 census put Bozeman's population at 53,293, making it the fourth-largest city in Montana. It is the principal city of th ...
, he had a 5–5–1 record over two seasons. While head coach of the baseball team at Washington, Graves also served as an assistant coach in football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
to several coaches.
Basketball
Graves was a head basketball coach for six seasons, the first three at Alabama, where he was the program's first coach and compiled a record of 20–12 () from 1912 to 1915. He later headed the Texas A&M program for a season and two at Montana Agricultural. At Washington, he was an assistant coach for 24 seasons under head coach Hec Edmundson. Graves had met Edmundson at Idaho when they were undergraduate athletes, and both were head coaches at Texas A&M in the spring of 1919, Edmundson in track and Graves in baseball.[
]
After coaching
After stepping down as baseball coach at Washington, Graves became an assistant athletic director at the university, where he remained until his death.[ He was also involved with ]horse racing
Horse racing is an equestrian performance sport, typically involving two or more horses ridden by jockeys (or sometimes driven without riders) over a set distance for competition. It is one of the most ancient of all sports, as its basic p ...
in the state as a race steward
Steward may refer to:
Positions or roles
* Steward (office), a representative of a monarch
* Steward (Methodism), a leader in a congregation and/or district
* Steward, a person responsible for supplies of food to a college, club, or other ins ...
at Longacres
Longacres was a Thoroughbred horse racetrack in Renton, Washington, United States. Owned by the Gottstein/Alhadeff family and operated by the Washington Jockey Club for the vast majority of its existence, the racetrack was the home of Thor ...
in Renton and Playfair Race Course in Spokane.
Death
While visiting Pullman in the spring of 1959, Graves fell and broke a hip. That December, he was hospitalized in Seattle for treatment of a liver ailment and died several weeks later in January 1960 at age 73.[ He is buried at Calvary Cemetery in Seattle, about a mile (1.6 km) northeast of the university.
The UW athletic office building (1964)] and the two former baseball fields (through 1997) were named for Graves; he was posthumously inducted into the Big W Club, the UW athletics hall of fame, in 1980.
Head coaching record
College football
College baseball
Source:
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Graves, D. V.
1886 births
1960 deaths
Alabama Crimson Tide athletic directors
Alabama Crimson Tide baseball coaches
Alabama Crimson Tide football coaches
Alabama Crimson Tide men's basketball coaches
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Minor league baseball managers
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Missouri Tigers football players
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Montana State Bobcats men's basketball coaches
People from Lincoln County, Missouri
Texas A&M Aggies baseball coaches
Texas A&M Aggies football coaches
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Washington Huskies football coaches
Washington Huskies men's basketball coaches